the main concern is yemen, home base for al qaeda's arabian affiliate. officials say the threat is greater than it's been in a long time and that has some u.s. military units on higher alert. cnn will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated throughout the day. thanks for watching "state of the union." i'm candy crowley. "fareed zakaria gps" starts right now. this is "gps," the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we have a great show for you today. first up, the end of the american dream. can americans make it no matter where they start from? a blockbuster new study gives us the answers, and we will delve into them. then, imagine an iranian president who thinks nuclear weapons are a waste of resources. well, exactly such a person assumed iran's top elected job this week.

we will talk to people who know president rouhani. later the prince of saudi arabia sounds the alarm about his country's future. can saudi arabia endure? and finally, how to make a hamburger without killing a cow, and why it might save the world. but first here's my take. the hottest political book of the summer, "this town" by mark leeb witch is a vivid detailed picture of the country's rule elite filled with fake friendships and sensationalist media. beneath the juicy anecdotes is a depressing message about corruption and dysfunction. if you're trying to understand why washington works so badly for the rest of the country, the book explains that it works extremely well for its most important citizens, the lobbyists. the permanent government of the united states is no longer defined by party or branch of government, but rather by a

profession that has comfortably encamped around the federal coffers. the result, according to many measures, is that washington has become the wealthiest city in the united states. leibovich describes a city in which money has trumped power as the ultimate currency. lobbyists hold the keys to what everyone in government, senator or staffer is secretly searching for, a post-government income. in 1974 only 3% of retiring members of congress became lobbyists. today that number is 42% for members of the house and 50% for senators. the result is bad legislation. look at any bill today and it is a gargantuan document filled with thousands of giveaways. the act that dree atd the federal reserve in 1913 was only 31 pages home. the 1933 glass steeg al

legislation was only 37 pages long. the dodd-frank bill is 848 pages plus thousands of additional pages of rules. the affordable care act is more than 2,000 pages. bills have become so vast because they are qualified by provisions and exemptions and exceptions put in by the very industry being targeted. a process that academics call regulatory capture. the entire political system creates incentives. consider just one factor and there are many, the role of money which has expanded dramatically over the past four decades. harvard university's lawrence lechlt sich has pointed out congressmen spend three out of every five work days raising money. they also vote with extreme attention to their donors' interests. he cites studies that demonstrate donors get a big bang for their campaign bucks, sometimes with returns on their

investment that would make a venture capital firm proud. now, taking money out of politics is a mammoth challenge, so perhaps the best one could hope for instead is to limit what congress can sell. in other words, enact a thorough reform of the tax code, ridding it of the thousands of special exemptions, credits and deductions which are, of course, institutionalized, legalized corruption. the most depressing aspect of the book is how utterly routine all the influence peddling has become. in 1990, ramsey mcmullen, the great historian of rome, published a book that took on the central question of his field. why did the greatest empire in the history of the world collapse in the fifth century? the root cause, he explained, was political corruption which had become systemic in the late roman empire. what was once immoral had become accepted as standard practice and what was once illegal was now celebrated as the new

normal. many decades from now a historian looking at where america lost its way could use this town as a primary source. go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to my "washington post" column this week, and let's get started. when the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart, it undermines the very essence of america. that idea that if you work hard, you can make it here. >> that was president obama last week. in fact one thing that both right and left agree on is that social and economic mobility, bowing able to make it no matter where you start from, is at the heart of the american dream. in recent years the most depressing statistics about this country have been that that mobility has declined, particularly compared with other

countries, despite the anecdotes and celebrated examples, most americans appear to be stuck in the economic strata into which they were born. last week the most detailed study on this topic was released. it provides lots of fascinating clo clues about the causes of our problem, breaking american mobility down by geography. for example, if you were born in a detroit family in the bottom fifth of the income levels, you would have a 5% chance of making it to the top fifth. but if you were born in san diego, your chances are twice as good. why? we're going to get to the bottom of this. raj chetty is one of the authors of the study. he is an economist at harvard and won the macarthur genius grant last year. je jeff sachs is the author of "the price of civilization." megan mccartle is a journalist who has written for the atlantic and scott is a fellow at the brookings institution. welcome all.

raj, what did you think as one of the authors of this fascinating study, what are the big takeaways that you get out of it? >> so the basic fact from this study is that there's a great deal of variation within the u.s. in rates of upward income mobility. so traditionally people often perceive the u.s. as the land of opportunity. as you were saying, recently people have become concerned that upward mobility is declining in the u.s. relative to other countries. what we're showing in this study is actually you should think about the u.s. very differently. there are some places that are in fact lands of opportunity where children do have high odds of moving from the bottom of the income distribution to the top, places like pittsburgh or san diego or san francisco. and then there are other places like atlanta or charlotte or indianapolis where the odds of moving up in the income distribution are unfortunately much, much lower. >> what was the thing that most struck you? why is that? >> there are a number of correlations that we're able to document. we don't know for sure exactly what the causes of these differences are. but what we can say is things like differences in school

quality or differences in the degree of income and equality or segregation in a city, or things like the number of two-parent families in an area are all correlated with upward mobility. so, for instance, a place like atlanta where the odds of moving up in the income distribution are particularly low, they send to be cities where there's a lot of income segregation. the poor are not living in close proximity with the rich, for example. >> jeff, what was your take reading what we know of the study? >> i think it helps to explain what's happening more generally, which is a crisis at the bottom, of course soaring wealth at the top, and a real problem for ameri america. in places with very low social and income mobility, you mentioned detroit in the opening, that's a place where the labor market is just disappearing. there aren't jobs. the school system is in deep crisis. some of the factors that raj has just indicated. we see that in a lot of parts of america. >> megan, would it be fair to

look at this and say what this tells you is that there's places in america where there's significant public investment tend to do much better, good public education of some kind, good public transport of some kind, so that the poor can get to jobs. those seem to be the kind of things that are correlated with doing well. so, again, would it be fair to make a kind of political statement and say blue america seems to do better at this than red america? >> i don't think it is fair. you look at places like salt lake city which does very well but isn't what we think of as a thriving kind of blue state model urban metropolis, it's a city where people marry extremely young. >> and salt lake city is off the charts. it is the number one city in terms of economic mobility. >> i think that hints at another issue, which is cultural capital. you know, salt lake city is an area, you've got a high mormon population. the mormon church is extremely

good. they have their own private welfare system. they are extremely good at investing in people. if you're in a mormon parish, call it, and something is going wrong in your life, you're going to have intensive kind of tag-team efforts by people in your community to get you back on track. so i think that what you're looking at and professor chetty spoke about two-parent families, there's a lot of cultural capital that used to be more widely distributed and is getting segregated. that also goes back to jobs. as the labor market has declined at the bottom, you have this kind of pernicious effect where men can't make enough to support a family. they're getting detached from their families. and, you know, it's hard to tell people wait until you have kids, until you've got two parents in the home, you've got enough money to live on, because they don't see that as a realistic possibility. i mean it's a whole cluster of things. we're not going to find the

cause. >> scott, what's your reaction to that? >> my immediate reaction to the results, and i've been doodling around with them, is that inquality was the dog that didn't bark. i sort of looked across all of the local areas that are in the paper and i looked across the top 100, the biggest 100 ones and the relationship between the amount of mobility that the people in the local area have and houchw much income is recei by the top percent there's no relationship. >> in other words, the fact that an area thaz high levels of income inequality does not mean low levels of mobility. so you can high level income distribution but still the poor have chances to move ahead? >> that's absolutely right. i completely agree with raj about how careful you have to be about drawing causal inferences about all of this, but there has

been this ongoing debate between people who look at inequality across countries where countries that have more inequality tend to have lower mobility and there's been this argument that it's because of the inequality that some countries have lower mobility than others. i think this data refutes that. >> we're going to come back and what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the united states in the context of other countries. why is it that it's easier to move up in the united kingdom than it is in the united states? m about the walmart low price guarantee. got your list? let's go. yeah! look at that price! oh wow. that's amazing. my kids love those. it's so fast and easy in the morning for us. now all your back to school meals are covered. thank you. ok, ready? what?! that's the walmart low price guarantee backed by ad match. save time and money getting your kids ready for school. bring in receipts from your local stores and see for yourself. save more this back to school on quick and easy breakfast with low prices on kellogg's cereals, pop tarts and jif chocolate hazelnut spread with our low price guarantee backed by ad match.

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we are back with jeff sachs, raj chetty, megan mccardell and scott winship talking about economic and social mobility in america. raj, you were saying that while it's true that income inequality doesn't seem to be that strongly correlated, you can have high levels of income inequality and people still seem to have a ladder up but that doesn't work if you just take out the top. >> to clarify on the good 90 scott made, what we find is that the size of upper tail inequality, so the amount of income occurring to the top 1% of the income distribution is not highly correlated with revels of upward mobility in an area. however, the degree of what you

might call middle class inequality or the size of the middle class, the gap in incomes between the 25th and 75th income, that is very highly correlated with rates of upward mobility. so our takeaway is that it seems to be something that's related to the extent to which the middle class exists and is pulling away from the poor, rather than upper tail extreme concentration of wealth. >> i don't want to leave the top 1% scott free in this because it also depends on whether they pay their taxes and their strong control over the political system. and so unless we have rectification that reflects the fact that the income as soared at the very, very top but not the taxes, we're not going to get right some of these other things. >> the thing that i'm struck most by when you look at the comparative data is how amazingly well northern europe does, particularly scandinavia, where they have a very large middle class, where there is less inequality, and where it's sort of a left-right issue is

you have a fair degree of social stability because it's homogeneous, even though you don't have the same family structure, it's ethnically homogeneous but a very large public investment in education, particularly early childhood education. >> they have what's called social democracy. they pay a lot of taxes. almost half of their national income, whereas in the united states it's about 30%, not 50%. and they use that to support families, for example, exactly to address the kind of problem that megan mentioned. the families falling apart under the pressures of poverty. they support early childhood development, day care for poor families so that the mother can go to work and have the child in a safe environment that also is a kind of preschool environment. they pay for it. and they get great results. >> megan, i know you have sort of libertarian inclinations. it seems to me that's the big difference between the united states and northern europe,

whereby 6 or 7 years old, if you're a poor kid in america, you've kind of had a very tough time between the nutritional issues, day care and early childhood education. we now know that the brain is almost permanently disadvantaged. >> well, i think that there's been some really promising research on early childhood education. mr. chetty has done some of it. but it's difficult. it's a tough issue. when you look at these projects, things like the project that had great results in terms of long-term improvements and the life outcomes of kids they worked with, but this costs tens of thousands of dollars in today's dollars. it required intensive home visits, full-day preschool and the results were more in line of moving people a little bit farther into the working class, lower middle class. it wasn't that you took kids who grew up very disadvantaged and gave them a shot at getting into the top quintile, most of them didn't. that's a really good thing to

do. keeping them out of prison, keeping them from having babies at 14, keeping them graduating high school, those are great things to do. to the extent we can replicate that, i'm all in favor of it. the big question is when you do one of these projects, you've got gung-ho researchers who hire top-notch teachers, make sure everyone is really committed to this project. when you're trying to roll this out to 4 million kids in america at once, do you get this or do you get headstart, which hasn't really produced much in the way -- >> well, there is controversy. the one study on headstart i think is a flawed study. what do you think is the reason that you have this disparity, where the other countries are doing better? part of it is they're doing better at some of these things. britain use to be a very class ridden society, it's less so. but i'm struck by the fact that even canada does better than we do because it's also quite diverse. it has lots of immigrants. it has big cities. many of the excuses of, oh, well, denmark is a tiny country and it doesn't count don't apply when you look at canada. >> that's right.

i think the honest answer is we don't really have a good sense of why countries differ in terms of their mobility rates. miles korach is an economist at the university of ottawa, has done some really interesting research on u.s./canadian differences. what he found is canada does a few things that very clearly are different from american policy, and so at the end of the day he sort of noted that canada has more family leave, more generous policies when -- for both fathers and mothers when kids are born. it also has very different demographics than the u.s. as well. so the united states has a lot more teen child-bearing, a lot more entrenched poverty. we have a lot of segregation of a lot of our poor population, which i think is a really important result that jumps out in raj's paper. but i don't think we have a really good sense at all of how

to weight this or that, how much is institutional differences, how much of it is demographics, how much of it is economic growth, how much of it is culture and values. >> i know that you don't look at the cross-country comparison as much, but what is your sense about why is it that other countries seem to do well? >> well, you know what's fascinating to me is that it's true denmark has much higher mobility rates than the u.s. and so does canada, but there are places within the u.s. that have mobility rates that are quite comparable to these countries. so i think the fact that there's such variation within the u.s. potentially provides a lens into why there are these differences across countries. so if i would offer hypothesis, it would come back to early education or school quality more generally, things related to segregation or the degree of inequality. i think the key question going forward is which of these are the causal mechanisms. the hope is by using the data within the u.s. we'll get a much sharper sense of what matters. >> last word. >> i was going to say that it's

long been known that where there are high concentrations of african-americans, white populations don't vote for school funding, they don't vote for public goods, they pay a very heavy price for that. and so there is a very obvious and direct reason for what raj has found, and that is that absolutely poor environment for public services, for early childhood development and equality of schools. >> and it affects everyone. fascinating. thank you. we're going to have to leave it at that. we will come back to this very important subject. a look ahead at iran's new president. is he a moderate? does he really call the shots? i will speak with two experts who can shed light on the man who might be able to stop the next middle eastern war. but up next, what in the world? a middle east country held hostage by al qaeda with regular bombings. it is not syria, it is what many believe is a great success story. i will explain. to guard their manhood with new depend shields and guards.

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now for our "what in the world" segment. you've all seen or heard or read about the grim situation in syria, with thousands upon

thousands of civilians dead. you might be less aware that the second-most violent country in the world these days is iraq. yes, the country that we intervened in, with 180,000 troops at the peak and hundreds of billions of dollars. ten years later, it has levels of violence that would be described as a civil war anywhere else. more than 700 people died in a spate of bombings last month alone, and the death toll according to the u.n. is over 3,000 in the last four months. for many americans, iraq is a forgotten country. but recent events there provide an important set of lessons, not only for iraq but also for its arab spring neighbors and for syria in particular. let's go back to what sparked the current bout of violence. iraqi security forces killed more than 40 people when they stormed the camp of protesters.

the demonstrators were sunni muslims, iraq's government, of course, is led by shia muslims. for years now the shia have gained power and used their majority to win elections and then brutally sidelined the sunnis. remember, much of this is retribution. saddam was a sunni leader who brutally mistreated the shia. the wheels of revenge keep turning. where did washington fail? some point to our withdrawal in 2011 when the white house failed to convince baghdad it should retain a small presence of u.s. troops to train iraqis and boost security. but even that would not have been more than a band-aid. remember that when the iraq war was at its worst, when sectarian violence killed thousands every month, we had more than 100,000 troops on the ground. foreign troops cannot stop an internal civil war. when the violence finally declined in iraq, the real

reason wasn't just coercion from american troops, but inclusion. general david petraeus did wonders with a counterinsurgency campaign but his chief contribution was to make peace with the sunni tribes that had so far been battling the new iraqi government. that effectively ended the insurgency. the baghdad government promised for its part to treat the sunnis as genuine partners and share power in every respect. but within a few years, it became clear that these were false promises instead of reassuring oing other sects the government has dominated and intimidated. its relations with the kurds, for example, have been dysfunctional. with sunnis they are now poisonous. sunni discontent has bread conditions ripe for militant groups to flourish. al qaeda, which is sunni run, is fueling violence in iraq. it is also working across the border in syria where it helps sunni rebels as they battle the

shia allowite regime. it is a larger inability to broker a lasting political segment among the key sects in iraq. of course the biggest culprit here is prime minister malaki who has shown himself to be a shia thug rather than a mandela statesman. in any revolution or upheaval, peace, stability and even democracy can only really emerge if the majority shares power with the minorities. let's keep that in mind as we think about the rest of the arab world, especially syria. getting rid of assad and the allowite sect that he represents would be a great step forward, but if the sunni majority then chooses vengeance and reprisals, it will mean years of violence and instability, whether the united states is involved or not. just take a look at iraq. lots more ahead. we have a fascinating look inside a country where 90% of

the private sector jobs are held by foreigners, saudi arabia. but up next, iran's new president. is he a moderate or is he a tool of the ayatollah? i have two expert voices. distribution systems," "and one of the most efficient trucking networks," "with safe, experienced drivers." "we work directly with manufacturers," "eliminating costly markups," "and buy directly from local farmers in every region of the country." "when you see our low prices, remember the wheels turning behind the scenes, delivering for millions of americans, everyday. "dedication: that's the real walmart"

i'm candy crowley in washington with a check of the headlines. in an unprecedented move, 22 u.s. embassies and consulates across the middle east, north africa and beyond are closed today. a global travel alert is also in place. the decision is in response to intelligence that says al qaeda or its affiliates could attack at any time. the move comes less than a year since the deadly september attack on a u.s. diplomatic post in benghazi, libya. meanwhile, cnn has learned that some u.s. military forces have been put on a higher state of alert. combat-equipped marines in southern spain and southern italy could begin moving in about an hour after they get orders. the u.s. military has taken similar measures in recent months during unrest in yemen and egypt. cnn will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated throughout the day. egypt's defense minister met with islamist leaders today to discuss the country's political crisis. violence has gripped that country since president mohamed

morsi was overthrown in a coup last month. hundreds have been killed in clashes between the egyptian military and pro-morsi backers. those are your top story, now back to "fareed zakaria gps." welcome back. in 2006, an op-ed in "time" magazine began with the following words. a nuclear weaponized iran destabilizes the region, prompts a regional arms race and wastes the scarce resources in the region. the author of that article was at the time a member of iran's supreme national security council. he was also iran's former top nuclear negotiator. as of this week, he is iran's president. hassan rouhani. but what kind of president will he be? is he as moderate as his words suggest? i have two certificates. hamid debaabashi is at columbia university and nicholas burns is a professor at harvard and

former undersecretary of state of the united states. professor dabashi, what did you make of rouhani's "time" magazine article? did it suggest that you that he for one thinks that while iran should have a nuclear energy program, he's absolutely against any kind of weaponization of that program? >> as you know, fareed, no politician, no statesman can be -- can be looked at only on the surface of what he says. there must be measures of checking him and making sure what he says are verifiable within international confinements, but there's no reason to believe that he goes out of his way to publish an article in "time" magazine in which he commits -- if you go down the article, in fact there is nothing other than committing to iran to transparency in multiple number of ways. on the surface, this article has to be taken seriously. as president ronald reagan once

said, trust but verify. within that confinement, i think even back in 2006 that statement could have been the beginning of a negotiation. >> nick burns, you have studied these issues very carefully. you were at the state department at the time. you were in charge of iran, but in the bush administration that meant you were not allowed to meet with or directly negotiate with these guys. when you read that "time" magazine essay, what did you think and what do you think of rouhani? >> well, i think that rouhani is an intriguing person, fareed. the relevant experience here is the european negotiations with him between 2002 and 2005. this is britain, france and germany. and i think the europeans found him to be fairly pragmatic and fairly straightforward. so if we're trying to gauge can a president rouhani take iran into direct negotiations with the united states and the other countries of the permanent -- members of the security council, there may be some basis for slight optimism.

on the other side of the ledger, however, he's just one in a leadership. and of course the supreme leader is a more powerful figure. he's more cynical. he's certainly been much more hostile to the united states and much more supportive of iran's nuclear program. so i think you have to weigh that as well. >> let me ask you, professor dabashi, about the supreme leader and rouhani's power within this very complicated iranian system that at least from the outside very few of us understand, because if you look at ahmadinejad and before him, the president of iran does have power, but not ultimate power and not enough often to get his way entirely. so what should we make of that? will rouhani have the power to make a deal with the west? >> not entirely on himself. the fact of the matter is iran is a very complicated regime consisting of security, intelligence, military and

clerical establishment and the network. it is that network that has to be considered at the same time. however, it is not that rouhani has no power. he is a consume mat insider. he is far more powerful -- he will be a far more powerful president than ahmadinejad would have ever dreamt or even before him anybody else. >> why do you say that? that's fascinating. why do you say that? >> because his revolutionary credentials are absolutely impeccable. he's very close to hameni and he doesn't have to prove, if you were to follow the course of the presidential debates over the last two or three months, he was constantly talking in a language that means that he's very close to not only hameni but also the security and the military establishment. and also he talks from that confidence because we have to keep in mind that regionally iran is in a very delicate position. iran is in trouble in iraq.

iran is both involved and in trouble in syria. the region is in turmoil. so one should shift, fareed, the context of our nuclear negotiation, in the context of the region and the readiness of iran and the fact that even somebody like rouhani was suggested to become the next president in order to understand the readiness and the -- of the situation as we have now for resolution rather than laser beaming whether or not there would be a power struggle between him and hameni, one has to look at the larger regional issue, which is now ripe, in my judgment, for direct negotiation and resolution. >> nick burns, finally and briefly, are you optimistic, given where we are today? >> i'm optimistic that talks will open. this is a time for diplomacy. i think for the rest of 2013, fareed, we'll see a big negotiation, hopefully direct

talks. but the onus really is on iran. iran is the outlier here, not the united states. and iran is going to have to, president rouhani, convince the rest of the world that it's time to be serious and honest about its nuclear program. but i think there's that opportunity and we ought to embrace diplomacy at this point in time. >> gentlemen, fascinating krgs. thank you very much. up next, will saudi arabia go the way of the soviet union? i have a guest that really knows saudi arabia and believes that to be the case. ome fiber! with new phillips' fiber good gummies. they're fruity delicious! just two gummies have 4 grams of fiber! to help support regularity! i want some... [ woman ] hop on over! [ marge ] fiber the fun way, from phillips'. ♪ [ female announcer ] when your swapportunity comes, take it. ♪ what? what? what? [ female announcer ] yoplait. it is so good.

there is a country in the middle east that has more people using twitter and youtube than almost any other nation in the world percentagewise. i'm not talking about egypt or another arab spring nation, i'm talking about saudi arabia. but with all of those citizens governed in an almost medieval monarchy, could the house of saud be on its way out? i sat down with two experts who see it quite differently. thomas lipman is a former middle east bureau chief for the "washington post" he's the author of "saudi arabia on the edge, the uncertain future of an american ally." karen elliott house is a pulitzer prize-winner who wrote

"on saudi arabia, its people, past, religion, fault lines and future." listen in. >> karen elliott house, thomas lipman, that you for joining me. >> my pleasure. >> karen, you say saudi arabia to you is reminiscent of the soviet union in its dying decade. with one aged bureau leader leading to the next. you look at these kings, each of them over 80 years old. do you think it's that bad? >> i think it is equally stagnant. as the old soviet union was at that period of time. so it's not just the aging leadership. i think the country is quite ossified, the economy and the politics, there are none. but people are finding a voice, and i think they understand that the myth just as communist myth of we're better off than everyone else, russians figured out that wasn't true. i think the myth of we are the

purist muslims in the world, people see that there is an awful lot that's not pure in saudi arabia. >> the sort of objective data that karen points out, even i knew some of this but i was stunned to see, again, how bad it is. one out of every three people in saudi arabia is a foreigner. two out of every three people with jobs in saudi arabia are foreigners. and in saudi arabia's private sector, nine out of ten people who hold jobs are nonsaudi. so basically you've imported this vast class of people who actually work to support saudis who, you know, it's fair to say do nothing. >> well, that is true and it has been true. partly it's because saudi arabia's economic history is built upside down. they didn't have the stages where they went from subsis tense, dirt under the finger

nails jobs to move up slowly the way we imagine our society did, leaving aside the imported labor in the form of slaves that built our country. we imported plenty of labor. but it's true that they got rich overnight. and the first task that they faced was building the space. you do that by hiring people to work for the state. they haven't grasped the fact that in the private sector employers want to hire as few people as possible. they're not in business to hire more workers. they want to hire fewer people and cheaper people. it's an understandable instinct. >> the question i have for you, karen, the things you describe about saudi arabia have been true for a while. what gives you the surety that it's unstable? >> i am not saying it's absolutely done for, but i think at least two things are very different from the past. one is simply information,

social media, satellite tv, the internet. people -- saudis know what's going on in the world in a way they never did. and the more the king has tried to inch things in the direction of progress, the more the conservatives pull in the opposite direction. so i think the divisions in society are greater, number one. number two, the information is greater. and number three, the royal family, the band of brothers, is running out and they are going to have to make a generational change. and a lot of saudis who watch this kind of cartoon time bomb with the fuse burning, you know, they have nothing to say about it, but they do worry that the grandsons, all of these hundreds of grandsons who would be king, that some of them will wind up fighting amongst each other. >> you're saying that, look, a lot of young saudis flirt with jihad and things like that

because they confront this kind of what they see -- >> they're bored. they have nothing to do. and they're frustrated. they're unhappy because they feel they should have a better life. their view is the oil wealth belongs to the country, not the royal family. they don't really want to work any harder, but they want more. so they're frustrated. and they are bored. imagine if you worked in a company where you couldn't aspire even to be a regional manager, and saudi arabia is fundamentally the sauds control the board, the president, the ceo, all the provincial governors, all the regional managers but one, 12 of the 13 are princes. so you -- it's not surprising that people go to work and take their salary and don't really care, because you can't be -- you can't aspire to have any

influence on your own country. >> we're going to have to leave it at that. a fascinating conversation. this is a crucial country, and if it does -- if it does go the way of the soviet union, there will be ripples feltd all over the world. thank you both very much. >> thank you. up next, the world's first test tube hamburger. it could save the world. right back. wyuu1 0 &xfr

this week, the amir of kuwait announced pardons for all the people convicted of offending him. yes, that is an actual nochbs kuwait. one activist was reechbtsly sentenced to 11 years in jail for insulting tweets. that brings me to my question. in which country did it recently become legal to insult the president for the first time in 132 years? is it a, north korea, b, china, c, turk men stan or france. go to cnn.com/fareed. don't forget to follow us on twitter and facebook. if you miss one of our shows, they're all online. go to itunes.com/fareed. this week's book of the week

of the "this town." i talked it up at the start of the show. a picture of the corruption and culture of washington today. the book doesn't step back enough in many ways, it seems to revel in the world it reveals, but whatever its flaws, it provides a vivid picture of power and money in washington today and it will make you a little queasy. now for the last look. look closely at these images. in this petrie dish are a cow's stem cells. they will ultimately become the world's first test tube hamburger. sounds interesting? a scientist in the netherlands says it takes about nine weeks to grow just one five-ounce burger. it will be made from a mixture of 20 thousand strips of cultured meat. add in a dose of lab-grown animal fat and some $384,000 later, presto, a hamburger.

it is expensive for now. but remember real meat costs resources too. raising animals for food takes up 30% of the planet's land mass and more than 8% of global human water. meanwhile, global demand for meat is expected to double in the next 40 years. i really hope the test tube burger tastes good, we need it. there is a live demo in london this week. the correct answer to our gps challenge question was d, france. after a ruling from the european court of human rights, the french parliament overturned a law last week that had made it illegal to offend the head of state. the law dated back to 1881 when the first person to be prosecuted under the law called preston grave such slurs as cover your children's ears, profane thug and iconoclastic

clad. we probably need to figure out how to say it in arabic or thai or something like that. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." limbaugh, hannity, two of radio's biggest voices may soon be dropped by one of america's biggest radio broadcasters, are not. limbaugh says there's nothing to see here. >> i just want to assure you everything is cool. and as always, what's on the table for this program is growth. >> but if cumulus media does decide to drop rush and sean, and that's a very big if, is that really what liberals want id to be? which is the beginning of the end of right-wing radio. did you hear, hillary clinton has won the 2016 democratic nomination for president. i'm kidding, of course. but nbc's dramatic mini series about her life in the white house and after is coming